


a site of violence

by crownedcarl



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: (beware the bad writing & potential ooc ahead), (graphic retellings of violence as...foreplay? just. roll with it.), (peaches as a metaphor for sex), Gen, I Have Never Read The Graphic Novels And It's Been A Long Ass Time Since I Watched S7, Inappropriate Language & Behavior In a Church, M/M, Negan Being Negan (Walking Dead), Pre-Slash, Timeframe: Alexandria S7, Unresolved Sexual Tension, character study (sort of?), so you have been warned, the author is pretentious and has no regrets, the author pretends there's a 'plot' within this mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 01:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11220279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownedcarl/pseuds/crownedcarl
Summary: Negan finds himself becoming a captive audience, the king to Rick’s Scheherazade.





	a site of violence

**Author's Note:**

> this is the result of a speed-write at 3am after drinking two cans of red bull & lurking on the deep web staring at photos of jdm jacking it in a bathtub. if you came here expecting good writing, i'm very sorry to disappoint, because this wasn't beta'd at a l l. finally, this is my first rick/negan piece, the title's in the end-notes, go forth and suffer etc etc. ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

_Sing me a song_ , he’d said to Carl.

Today, Alexandria is a cocoon of sweltering heat in the thick of summer, the church a welcome refuge from the blistering asphalt. Negan’s feet had taken him there as soon as the creepy priest had inclined his head and murmured _Rick’s in the chapel_ , and Negan had taken no small amount of joy from seeing the man flinch at the broad grin he received in thanks for that information.

 _Sing me a song_ , he’d said to Carl. To his daddy, Negan says _tell me a story, Rick. Think of it as a confessional._

He doesn’t make impromptu visits, but Negan’s been bending his own rules since the first night he had Rick Grimes crawling at his feet. How far the man has come, he marvels, from the sniveling mess Negan, for a half-second, had contemplated putting out of its misery. In hindsight, this might be the best decision he’s made in years.

The fact that Rick doesn't flinch or startle as Negan enters the church speaks volumes of the man's reluctant acceptance of him, and if Negan had to hazard a guess, he'd say Rick suspected it was him striding across the hardwood floor without Negan needing to say a word. The line of Rick's body had tensed after a few steps, recognizing the footfall that had carried Negan right to his side.

Call it boredom, but Negan isn't quite done screwing with Rick.

“A story?” Rick questions, staring at Negan from where he’s sprawled back against the pew, his body vulnerable and exposed. He must realize that very thing as he sits up properly and folds his hands in his lap, glancing at Negan out of the corner of his eye.

Stepping out of the truck, Negan had been disappointed to find himself greeted by Rosita. Not because of her obvious disdain, but because it wasn’t _her_ truly impressive glare he was expecting to pierce him at the gates.

He leaves Alexandria with whatever he wants. Today is the first time he’s brought something along, and it sure as shit isn’t for anyone but Rick. The peace offering has got to come from the top and trickle down, spreading the goodwill through the fine people of Alexandria, showing them that Negan ain't half bad - sometimes. He doesn't want them to get complacent, after all.

The church is cool and quiet, the cicada screams muted. Negan places Lucille in one of the pews, grinning at Rick, knowing it infuriates the man how goddamn casually Negan carries himself where he isn’t welcome. It must tear at his ego, knowing that even if he grabbed Lucille and bashed Negan's brains out, it wouldn't be the end, and Rick stays where he is, playing by Negan's rules.

“A story,” Negan repeats, banging Lucille lightly against the back of the pew Rick’s sitting in, getting his attention and delighting in Rick’s sudden recoil. Not quite a flinch, but close enough. “Shit, you don’t know what a story is? Let me give you an example: there once was a prick named Rick-”

“Stop,” Rick sighs. “You want a story? I'll give you one.”

Flashing his teeth in something nowhere near a smile, Negan says “Attaboy. I ought to treat you. In fact…”

Despite the barely concealed resentment, the glare in Rick’s eyes simmers to a stop when he realizes Negan is actually producing something out of his jacket. He stares at the can in Negan’s hand for a long time.

“...peaches?”

There’s a bead of sweat traveling down Rick’s jaw, trembling in his beard before landing on the floor. Rick wipes at it absently, fingers reaching for the can and withdrawing abruptly when Negan yanks it back. The flames are fanned, and Rick's glare gains a level of poison it didn't, before.

“Peaches,” Negan echoes. “See, Rick,” he laughs, wedging the fine point of his knife into the top of the can, slowly sawing around the edges, “You’re going to tell me a story, and if I like it, you get a peach. In fact, the whole damn town gets a little somethin’ if you tell me something that makes me think your sorry ass is worth keeping alive.”

It's a bluff, and Rick damn well knows it at this point. Negan didn't kill him in the clearing, didn't harm a fucking hair on his head. Simon calls him a cat playing with his food, and the comparison is apt. He's just having too much fun with Rick to let him get off easy.

“And if not?” Rick questions. His fingers are running through his hair, pushing it flat against his skull, but the curls are bouncing loose again, damp with sweat. Negan stares, then tears his eyes away. Doesn't do him any good to go and grow an attachment to what amounts to his property, now does it?

He wets his lips. “If I don’t like it,” he clarifies, “Well, shit, I guess I’ll just have to burn some more mattresses, bash in a couple more skulls. You better start talking, Rick,” Negan chuckles, placing the opened can on the pew, against Rick’s thigh, and he can see the temptation in Rick's face. He bets Alexandria is starving. “Tell me a fucking story. Something you’ve never told another living soul.”

The tightness in Rick’s mouth isn’t going anywhere. His eyes lock onto a spot on the floor, and Negan waits so goddamn patiently for Rick to find his voice that he might as well be sainted, one of these days, for his restraint in dealing with the man.

His fingers find a peach, fish it out. Rick tips his head back, eyes closed, and exhales. Negan's eyes follow the minute ticks of his face closely. You can learn a lot about a man when he doesn't know you're looking.

The smell is thick in the space between them; Negan thinks he’d suffocate on the sweetness if it weren’t for the lingering rot, the stench of the dead that never quite washes away. The juice sticks to his fingers when he rolls the peach in his palm, slow and steady.

“I killed someone,” Rick says, without the holier-than-thou weight on his shoulders that Negan was expecting. For a story, that’s one hell of a way to get started.

Rick’s mouth twitches, tugging into a frown. Barely-there, but Negan's looking for it.

“I loved him,” Rick admits, and Negan wonders what in the hell someone could do to make Rick Grimes kill them in cold blood, but he’s not left wondering for long. Rick could refuse him, and Negan would probably let him get away with it. He’s taken enough from these people that he wouldn’t be surprised if Rick kept his teeth gritted, stubborn and taciturn, forcing Negan to leave without his bounty.

But he talks. The words spill from his mouth, and Negan finds himself becoming a captive audience, the king to Rick’s Scheherazade.

The question on his face must be obvious, because Rick shakes his head, and he holds his hand out readily enough when Negan rewards him with a peach. Rick lets it sit in his palm, sticky-sweet drops trailing down his wrist. The drops cling to the fine hairs.

“I loved him,” Rick repeats, as if that’s the worst part of the story, the most shameful part. “But he wanted me dead. He kept trying-”

“Trying to kill you?” Negan asks, because now he’s curious, like a dog that's latched onto a bone and is reluctant to let it go. “I’ll be damned, Rick, you really do want to save the whole fucking world, don’t you?”

“Not back then,” Rick retorts, shaking his head. “And not anymore.”

Negan hears what he’s not saying. It makes his smile widen, his teeth digging into his bottom lip. If he lets his tongue shape the mocking words he wants to throw in Rick’s face, now, he’ll never hear the end of the story, and he’s got a feeling it’s got one hell of an end.

Rick learned early on not to underestimate Negan; he beat that lesson into each and every one of those sorry fucks kneeling in the dirt, but Negan’s starting to realize Rick is more than the mess Negan made of him, that night.

He’s something savage and bestial, under the right circumstances, and Negan can’t wait to find out what those might be. Half the fun is finding out what makes him tick, and then beating that fight right back out of him.

“You killed him,” Negan coaxes, hands on his thighs, resting where the denim of his jeans is wearing away slowly but surely. “Did you enjoy it? I bet you did, didn’t you?”

He can’t help himself, and Rick shouldn’t expect him to show restraint. Instead of a glare, Negan gets something wholly different for his trouble.

Rick’s frank “Yes,” is spoken calmly and it takes him by surprise. Just when Negan thought he had this guy figured out, Rick goes and throws a damn curve-ball at him.

He killed a man. So what, Negan is tempted to ask, because anyone still alive today must've done some dark, twisted shit to stay that way, and Rick's not as pristine as he likes to think, but the words never come. Whatever blood Rick's got on his hands is long since dried.

Rick isn't done, though. Negan is a little surprised, honestly, because this is the first time Rick's freely offered him information, the first time he's willingly shared more with Negan than the desire to see him dead, and he keeps his mouth shut. Can't afford to cut Rick off, now that the story's flowing out of him.

"I let him try," Rick says, his voice low and muted. "I knew what he was going to do, I _knew_ he wanted me dead, but I let'im. It had to be him," Rick confesses, "He had to make the first move. I needed him to give me a _reason_ , otherwise...otherwise, it'd have been just murder. Just senseless violence. And I couldn't live with that, so I waited, and I told him we were going to be alright, and then I killed him."

 _Goddamn_ , Negan thinks, because it's been a long fucking time since someone managed to impress him. _Goddamn_ , he thinks, because Rick's got something twisted inside of him and he doesn't even know it.

There’s only one question left to ask, but Negan lets the silence do the talking for a while. Rick’s got a hunch in his shoulders, a tightness to his jaw; it isn’t guilt, but shame burns hot on your heels, and Negan recognizes it. Hell, Rick might as well be broadcasting it for miles around, the way his conscience is weighed down and trembling.

There’s only one question left to ask. “Why? Why’d you kill him?”

Rick pins him with a cool stare, blue meeting blue.

“Because he wanted to take everything from me.”

Oh, Negan can’t resist the urge to smile, because Rick’s voice isn’t sharp enough to be a threat, but it’s cutting enough to verge on a warning. He wonders if that’s a promise Rick thinks he’s capable of keeping, because Negan hasn’t for one second forgotten what Rick told him, kneeling at his feet.

_I’m gonna kill you. Not today, not tomorrow. But I’m gonna kill you._

“Tell you what, Rick,” Negan huffs, shaking his head as he fishes for a peach, watching as Rick finally brings one to his mouth and bites. The juice drips down his chin, droplets clinging to his beard. “That’s one sad fucking story, and I gotta admit, I don’t appreciate it one fucking bit that you’re holding out on me. Next time,” he promises, “You’re gonna tell me everything, no details spared.”

Softly, with a lover's tongue, Negan murmurs "You're gonna tell me every last dirty thing you ever did, Rick. Don't think I won't force it out of you if I have to."

And if it’s not anticipation he reads in Rick’s eyes, it’s a challenge. That square jaw tilts up and then back down, a half-nod that concedes to Negan’s terms, because at this point, Rick’s got no choice but to agree.

“You think you own us,” Rick mutters, teeth sinking into the peach, throat working as he swallows. “You think you own _me_ , but you don't. So go ahead," he bites out, surprisingly softly, contrasting with the sharp jut of his jaw. "Make good on those threats, but don't forget you don't know _shit_ about me."

“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong,” Negan counters. His fingers find Rick’s chin, smearing sweetness across his jaw. With a twitch of his wrist, he could be tracing that mouth. "I know everything that's worth knowing."

There's something in Rick's eyes, like a flicker of heat that's there and then gone; a fire spitting out sparks that fall to the floor and then die quietly. Rick's mouth is another story. His lips are sticky, and the temptation is boiling over, guiding Negan's curious hand until his thumb has reached the corner of Rick's mouth, resting there without any intent to move on.

If he leaned in, he's positive he'd taste the peach on Rick's tongue. If he leaned in, he's almost fucking positive Rick wouldn't fight him.

“Maybe I don't know you," Negan muses, smirking, "But here you are, confessing your sins to me, and here I am, listening. You do that with everyone you hate, Rick, or am I just _that_ special?"

Prideful or defiant, Negan can’t put his finger on it, but there’s a look in Rick’s eyes that’s more than a challenge, fiercer than a warning, and Negan wants to peel the skin right off of Rick’s body and look inside of him. He wants to know everything there is to know about Rick.

(He picks up Lucille, but before he takes his leave, Negan says “One day, we’re gonna be real good friends, Rick. You better fucking count on it,” and when his hand reaches out to cradle Rick’s neck, warm leather against hot skin, Rick doesn’t flinch from it.

 _Jesus_ , Negan thinks, staring at the damn near rapturous expression that crosses Rick’s face. _How about that_.)

-

“Got what you came here for?”

Simon’s got an uncanny fucking eye for the expressions Negan won’t let cross his face. He’s standing by the truck, shit-eating grin stretching his lips, picking up on the goddamn bounce in Negan’s step as he enters the truck and slams the door closed.

Undeterred by Negan’s silence, Simon laughs. “Guess everything’s swell, boss?”

“Peachy keen, Simon,” Negan mutters, settling in the passenger’s seat, a small smile curving his mouth. “Peachy-fucking-keen.”

**Author's Note:**

> "you make my mouth a site of violence;” - m. mccoy, ‘a place of light’


End file.
